Heroes of the Storm Kael’thas Patch Highlights

Wish Heroes of the Storm quickly approaching it’s June 3rd release date Blizzard has released another patch for the beta and released a new Hero into the Nexus. Along with the hero comes a slew of polish for the game along with significant skill changes for several heroes.

Patch Highlights:

Kael’thas Sunstrider has been added to the hero roster, this ranged assassin spell caster has some massive burst AoE damage.

The client has received significant optimisation, however all players graphical settings have been reset so be sure to check yours if you notice a change in graphics.

The Starter Bundle now comes with a 7-day Stimpack.

Options menus have been decluttered and now only show Heroes specific options.

Buff and Debuff icons have been removed from next to character portraits and instead status effects show above your character.

An option to disable ingame chat is now available in the options menu.

Co-Op has been renamed to Versus A.I and allows you to have all A.I team mates if you choose, however the A.I difficulty has also been increased (it’s harder!).

Talent locking is now disabled once your account reaches level 25.

Portrait borders and Master portraits have been added ingame.

An option to disable clicking on the mini map has been added.

250 gold one time rewards for completing tutorials has been added, you can replay these to gain the gold.

As always the list of changes in this patch is well worth the read of the full patch notes below or at very least make sure you check the notes for the Heroes you enjoy!

JUMP TO SECTION:

GENERAL

Players that reached level 40 after the March 24 Closed Beta patch was released will now properly receive the associated portrait reward upon logging in to Heroes of the Storm.

Please note: In order to receive the portrait, players affected by this issue must log in to Heroes of the Storm before June 1, 2015. After that date, the portrait will no longer be awarded.

Performance

Improved Graphics Settings Auto-Detection

Several tweaks have been made to improve how Heroes auto-detects certain hardware configurations.

As a result of these improvements, all players’ default Graphic Settings will be re-detected and reset following today’s patch in order to provide better performance and play experiences across a wider range of hardware configurations.

Updated Performance Notification

The performance overlay (Ctrl + Alt + F) has been updated to track several additional metrics, which should help players better identify some common performance issues.

Several icons have been added, which will display in the performance overlay when the game client is experiencing certain types of significant performance issues.

USER INTERFACE

Options menus have been cleaned up across the board, and a number of settings that were not applicable to Heroes of the Storm have been removed.

Social Options

An “Enable Allied Chat” checkbox has been added, which can be used to enable or disable in-game chat messages from teammates. This setting will be turned on by default.

Gameplay Options

A “Right-Click Through Minimap” checkbox has been added which can be used to toggle whether right-clicks will register on the minimap, or click through to the terrain underneath.

Please note that this is a first pass at implementation for this feature, and further improvements will be made with future updates.

An Observer and Replay Options tab has been added.

The “Save All Replays”, “Display Replay Time Info”, and “Observer Interface” settings have been moved from Gameplay Options into this new tab.

End-of-Game Score Screen

Summary

A gold border has been added to Hero and Player Level progress bars.

Talents

The Talents tab has been enabled on end-of-game Score Screens. Click to view the Talents selected by each player during the previous game.

Hero and Player Progression

Player Level Rewards

Upon reaching Player Level 25, all Heroic Abilities and Talents will now be automatically unlocked for Heroes that have not yet progressed to Hero Level 4.

Kindly note that, for the time being, players at or above Player Level 25 may still receive Heroic Ability and Talent unlock notifications as their Heroes progress through levels 1 – 4. This is a visual issue that will be resolved with a future game update.

In-Game UI

Buffs and Debuffs

Many buff and debuff icons, which were previously displayed to the left of Heroes’ in-game portraits, have been removed.

Some Hero-specific buff icons (such as Valla’s Hatred) have been moved to the right of the Hero’s in-game portrait.

Hero nameplates will now display the following status effects: Blinded, Invulnerable, Rooted, Silenced, Stunned, and Unstoppable.

Chat

Whispers from non-friends will now cause a help message to display, which indicates that the Chat Privacy Social Setting is turned off.

In-game Score Screens

The in-game Talents Screen (TAB) has received updated art.

Counters for Battleground Objectives (such as Doubloons, Skulls, etc.) are now also visible on the Talents Screen.

Players may mute chat messages from individual teammates by clicking the speech bubble icons found on the far-right side of the in-game Score Screen (TAB).

Teammates muted in this way will no longer be automatically added to the muting player’s “Blocked Communication” list.

Gear icons have been added to the far-right side of the in-game Score Screen, which can be clicked to report individual teammates or block all communication with them.

XP gains are now tracked more accurately for each Hero on the in-game Score Screen.

XP gains for takedowns, destroying structures, capturing Mercenary Camps, and securing Battleground Objectives are now split between all Heroes that are within standard XP range.

If no Heroes are nearby, XP earned this way is split evenly amongst the team.

Radial Ping Menu

The Radial Ping Menu has received updated art which more closely matches the pings issued by players in the game world.

Issuing an “On My Way” ping will now display an arrow on the terrain that indicates which direction that player is approaching from.

Play Screen

Hero Select

The Party Panel at the top of the screen will now indicate when party members have clicked the Ready button.

The tooltip that displays when hovering the mouse over portraits on the Hero Select screen will now indicate which Daily Quests can be progressed by playing as that Hero.

Training Mode has been added to the Play Screen.

Use Training Mode to play with A.I. teammates against A.I. opponents. Uther will feel quite compelled to offer advice during games played in this mode.

Games completed in Training Mode will not award any Gold or Daily Quest progress.

Versus A.I.

Use this game mode to play with human or A.I. teammates against more difficult A.I. opponents than those found in Training Mode.

Use the “Versus A.I. Options” box found in the lower-left corner of the Versus A.I. Screen to toggle between human and A.I. teammates.

Player Profile

Portrait Tab

Portrait borders have been added which will indicate the player’s current Hero and Team League ranks.

Navigate to the Portrait tab in the Player Profile to switch among the Player Level, Hero League, and Team League portrait borders.

Ranked Play

Ranks

Hero and Team League rank icons have received new art, and will now update visually upon reaching ranks 40, 30, 20, 10, and 1.

Shop

A number of visual improvements have been made to item display and layout in the Shop.

Each of the Heroes, Skins, and Mounts tabs will now display a featured item.

Discounts are now called out more prominently on item preview images.

Heroes Tab

Hero Ability layout on Heroes’ About pages has been overhauled.

An Abilities page has been added to Hero pages.

The Talents page has received visual improvements, and now more closely matches the Talent pane found on the Hero Select Screen.

Skins Tab

Skins have been classified as Rare, Epic, or Legendary based on how they alter a Hero.

These classifications will be displayed on each Skin’s preview image in the Shop, and Master Skins are also called out in this way.

Skin About pages will now list which aspects of the Hero they modify: Altered Voiceover, Replaced Voiceover, Themed Abilities, Themed Animations, and Themed Mount.

Tutorials

A pop-up dialog has been added to help new players track their progress through the Tutorial Missions.

The Introduction, Basic, and Advanced Tutorial Missions will now award the player with Gold upon completion.

If any Tutorial Missions are skipped, players may return to complete them (and claim their Gold rewards) at any time by opening the Main Menu (F10) and clicking the “Tutorials” button.

TASSADAR

WARRIOR

ANUB’ARAK

If Anub’arak is attacking an enemy when a Beetle is spawned, the Beetle will also attempt to attack that target.

If Anub’arak is not attacking anything when a Beetle is spawned, the Beetle will attempt to find a nearby target to attack.

Beetles will now attack and pursue a target found this way until that enemy dies, or the Beetles lose track of the target (through teleporting away, for example). Only then will the Beetles return to a lane.

Players will no longer enter an infinite rejoin loop if both Cores are destroyed simultaneously, and victory will be assigned to one team at random.

Please note: Randomly assigned victory/defeat is intended as a temporary solution, intended to fix the infinite rejoin loop as soon as possible. A more robust solution for games that end in a draw will be implemented with a future patch.

Alerts proclaiming that the Core is under attack will no longer play when an enemy Hero is within range of the Core before a Keep has been destroyed.

Fixed an issue that could cause Mercenary Camps on the Dragon Shire Battleground to permanently vanish when the Dragon Knight is killed.

Heroes killed just before being struck by the Dragon Knight’s Savage Charge Ability will no longer fly to the location where they would have landed upon respawning.

Fixed an issue that could cause the neutral Grave Golem in the Haunted Mines to drop Skulls outside the playable area.

Allowing a Temple to return to neutral ownership while it is firing its final 5 volleys will no longer generate error messages.

The in-game Score Screen (TAB) will now properly display the total number of Gems being carried by all three of The Lost Vikings on the Tomb of the Spider Queen Battleground.

Pressing the Escape key will now properly open the Main Menu when Heroes of the Storm is disconnected from the internet.
Hovering the cursor over other players on the end-of-game Stats tab will now properly indicate their current online statuses.

The preview image displayed when selecting Tomb of the Spider Queen Replays now properly displays the Battleground’s loading screen art.